Sasuke Week 2018
by Katarina-hime
Summary: Each Chapter is a different prompt for Sasuke Week 2018 on Tumblr. They're stand alone stories but they can tie in together. SasuHina
1. Day 1

A Hawk But No Longer A Hatchling

Not for the first time, but finally in a way he could put it into words, he realized that Naruto and Sakura were trying to be his parents.

Not intentionally.

They were just wrought with overbearing tendencies.

Checking in on him more than once or even twice a day. Looking through his fridge. Trying to cook food for him. Dropping prepared food off for him. Dragging him off to Ichiraku.

Dropping by late at night to make sure he was still at home.

They even tried to pry with his work schedule. More than once he had seen them riffling through his mission logs, and even going to his superior for him.

That had been the last straw.

"Hyuga,"

When Sasuke had returned to the village, after his lengthy trip of atonement, Kakashi had allowed him to start at Chunin level. A probationary period. To prove to his fellow ninja that he was trust worthy.

It was tedious.

He was being babied. Again. Just like with Naruto and Sakura. Only it felt worse coming from his former sensei.

"Uchiha-san," She greeted.

Sasuke had never been a Chunin before defecting. Before the war. But he had heard that the system they had now was new. More organized. Designed so details wouldn't slip through the cracks. Everything was accounted for. Made to weed out things like Danzo's Root, or any unsanctioned missions and the like.

Every single mission had to be audibly reported, and then written, by every individual of the team, every single time.

Sasuke's team reported to Hyuga Hinata.

She was sitting in her office, dressed in Chunin gear, as per requirement. Black long sleeve, black pants and green flak jacket.

Sasuke was dressed casually. Well, casually for him. Dark colors, baggy, but definitely not his uniform.

Hinata noticed. Her eyebrow quirked fractionally, her white eyes darted to his attire for less than a moment before returning to his face. She was very respectful, he had noticed this before. Her manners and habits were trained, razor sharp, as expected from someone from her background.

There was an underlying of something else. Someone, soft. Forgiving. When he had first spoken to Hinata, he thought he had sensed the same thing. The kind of coddling he could feel in his older team. He took it as a slight, a disrespect. It had taken him months, months to realize Hinata was different.

She was something completely foreign to him. Something he had rarely encountered, if ever.

A genuinely kind person, with no ulterior motive.

"I don't believe I have your team scheduled for anything today, Uchiha-san." Her voice was even, soft.

Sasuke nodded, stepping into her office anyways and shutting the door behind him.

She set down her pen, and gestured for him to sit across from her.

She was left handed, he noticed.

"You've come for something else?" She prompted after he settled across from her.

"Hn." He nodded. "My file."

"All files must remain here, cataloged. There are no exceptions, Uchiha-san." Her voice took on an ever so slightly firmer tone, though her body language remained relaxed.

She had always been serious about protocol.

"Fine." Sasuke resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "I just don't want anyone messing with it."

She raised an eyebrow at him, but kept her questioning of him silent.

"Sakura and Naruto. They've been trying to rearrange my schedule, change my mission placement."

Hinata was quite for a moment, staring at Sasuke.

He hated her eyes. All seeing. Without a pupil, it was hard to pinpoint where exactly she was looking. She could've been looking back into his own eyes but instead it looked like her eyes saw all of him. Every inch. Nothing was hidden from an all seeing eye.

Perhaps that's what he was most afraid of. Afraid she would see the things, the dark things he wanted to hide the most.

Things like how her hair, long and dark, laid on her back, reminded him of his mother. How her quiet, dismissive professionalism reminded him of his father. How her soft, overly formal way of speaking was so much like his brother.

He didn't want her to see that he recognized things in her that weren't there.

He didn't want her to see that maybe he didn't find her eyes ugly. Not at all.

"Uchiha-san," She began slowly. "Your file stays in the building, and is only removed by myself and my superiors, solely for the purpose of mission assignment. Neither Naruto-san or Sakura-san have clearance for that."

"Tch." Sasuke scoffed. "You don't think Sakura and Naruto can get what they want. They're war heros."

"What they did in the war doesn't come into account for protocol."

"Not even if they're friends?" Sasuke's question was pointed, accusatory.

"No, Uchiha-san."

"Not even for Naruto?"

Sasuke didn't know why he kept probing. She had albeit promised that his friends wouldn't be able to mess with his job. Why was he so insistent on wondering if she would allow Naruto access?

He could remember her blushing and stuttering around Naruto, back in the day. A far cry from her blank face and clinical speech she had taken on now.

"No." She answered, clipped.

Sasuke continued to stare.

"One day, Naruto-san will have the proper access to all the files. Until then, as I previously stated, only myself and my superiors have access to your file and it is strictly for assignments."

Sasuke finally sat back in his chair, continuing to stare at Hinata.

She waited a moment, to see if the conversation was finished. After a beat, she reached for her pen.

"If there's anything else I can help you with, Uchiha-san..."

She was dismissing him?

Not that he should be surprised. She had never been anything but professional and on topic when he encountered her during work hours.

Was he really being so smothered by his friends that a normal interaction with another adult was so blatantly refreshing.

He stood to leave but as he reached the door, he could feel that perhaps that not quite what he wanted. He couldn't falter though.

Her eyes.

He licked his lips.

Byakugan. All seeing.

Something snapped in Sasuke, like it had that morning about Naruto and Sakura. He had felt smothered. He was an adult. He didn't need them babying him. So he had come straight here, to amend the situation.

Sasuke was tired of her eyes. Of what they could see. Of trying to hide from them.

But there would been nothing to hide, nothing to look for if he kept it out in the open.

Sasuke had never been good with his feelings, though.

"Hyuga,"

She looked up from her paperwork, not exactly startled, she was a ninja after all. A sensory ninja. She knew he hadn't left her office yet. More curious as to what exactly he was doing.

He wasn't sure. He didn't like that. He had always been so sure about everything. From a child. He had specific plans and goals. To best his brother. Then to kill his brother. Avenge his family. Train with Orochimaru. Kill Itachi. Then his plans went off the rails; destroy Konoha, become Hokage. Even misguided, he had very specific goals. Then his atonement.

Now?

He was floundering more than he liked to admit. It was time to grow up, time to make new goals.

"What are you doing for dinner?" A part of him felt pathetic for asking that. He was Uchiha Sasuke. He couldn't have come up with something a little better?

Her eyes widened. "E-excuse me."

He didn't miss her little stutter, just as she surely didn't miss the quirk of his smirk.

He didn't add any clarification.

"I'm working." She gestured to her desk, full of neatly stacked papers, mission folders and scrolls.

"What time are you done?"

There was a long, long pause between them.

They were both adults now. Serious individuals. He knew for a fact she wasn't the type to waste time on frivolous outings, but neither was he. He was looking for something new. Something specific.

Hinata was one of the only people to give him the respect that he had been trying to gain back.

He respected her in return.

He couldn't help but watch as her cheeks ever so slowly warmed from pale petal pink to a deeper, rose color, flushing slightly. Almost glowing.

"That would be inappropriate, Uchiha-san. I am your superior."

Not only did she hold him at a respectful distance, but she was actively trying to push him away?

She had practically nailed her own coffin.

That was the type of behavior he just couldn't pass up.

"I'll be here at six."

She gaped at him as he left.


	2. Day 2

Sole-Survivor

Being the last Uchiha had been something that Sasuke had grown used to. He had been alone for some time. The last of his name.

Well his brother had been roaming around, but since Sasuke's entire goal at the time was to kill him, he never really counted that.

This was also long before he found out about the existence of Obito and Madara.

But now, they were all dead and gone. He really had been the last one. And he had spent the fews years after that alone as well. Jailed, for one. Then his self imposed walk of atonement, to help rid the world of the evils that he himself had spread.

It had been a long, long time before he had returned back to the village.

Things were much different than he had remembered, including his own home. The entire district had been left to rot in disrepair after the massacre. Then Pain had laid waste to everything. His family's former home had simply not been rebuilt. New homes, shops, streets and people covered the ground where once his family ruins had haunted.

One might think it poetic.

Not Sasuke.

Besides, his family had only been sequestered there from persecution after the Nine Tails attack, when he had only been a baby.

He had spent a long time being the sole survivor. The last Uchiha.

Two goals had ruled him. Kill his brother. Restore his Clan.

He had killed his brother.

The pain from that experience would pinch his heart every time he thought of him. Sasuke knew that through time, one could come to terms with the dead. His wife was like that. She could smile serenely and tell him stories of her mother from when she was a child. Sasuke doubted he could ever think on any memory of Itachi and not feel the raw, torn edges of agony.

Restoring his clan had been a little bit trickier.

Sasuke had agreed that making Konoha publicly admit what they had done to the Uchiha, to Itachi, would just spark distrust and even hatred against the Hokage. Against all Leaf Ninja.

If Sasuke had learned anything from his life, from his mistakes, from his walk of atonement, that unrest was dangerous. Peace had albeit been a fantasy until after the war.

Under no circumstances, would he jeopardize that. Not now. Not after all the sacrifices had been made to achieve it.

The Uchiha were dead. Itachi was dead. He had sacrificed his own honor for the village. Sasuke could at least honor his sacrifice.

It didn't matter so much when he had been alone.

He was distrusted. Hated, even. Spit on by some. It had never bothered him. Perhaps, he even deserved it. He could take their scorn. Their anger. He understood.

But time went on. Things changed. Suddenly, he wasn't alone.

It was worse when the scorn turned to his loved ones.

When the glares from the uchiwa fan on their backs weren't just directed at him, but the thin shoulders of his wife - When shop keepers sneered at her and her round pregnant belly - When his son toddled down the street on chubby, unstable legs, clutching his fingers and people turn away from them -

Whispers of traitor. Cursed clan.

For the first time, it hurt. It made him angry.

"Papa," his son tugged on his sleeve.

His son was his spitting image, if not for the blush on his cheeks.

"That's your family, right?"

Sasuke had taken his son on a walk, as he did often. Sasuke has genuinely enjoyed walking. He had bought a larger parcel of land than most people in Konoha usually had. The village was expanding and he had gotten his plot quite a ways away from the city. It was large enough for the house, a yard with a garden, fenced off, with still some land, left untouched, butting against a river.

Sasuke has never told Sanada what the memorial rock had been for. He must've asked his mother, and that had probably been the best explanation she had come up with.

The "rock" had been own by the Uchiha since before Konoha had founded. The Ancient stones had been used by Madara to justify attacking the leaf, his anger drive by persecution. The same stones that his own father and clan and used to fuel their anger, weather justified by their own persecutions or not, and drove them to plan their own coup d'état. A civil war.

He could feel it now. Feel the justifiable rage every time a villager looked down upon his wife and children.

He could understand what drove his predecessors to violence. The overwhelming need to protect his family and rage that came with their mistreatment. It was almost overwhelming.

Sasuke couldn't allow this to happen. Which it why he had kept the rock. Placed as far back on his property as it could go.

And he would visit it, to remind him, that greater peace would always need to come first.

"You are my family." Sasuke corrected.

His son smiled, shyly tucking his face down. His small fist tightened on his sleeve. Sasuke reaches down and swung his son up onto his hip.

"Should we go back?" Sasuke asked. Not that he was actually asking permission. The sun lowered, ready to set soon. His young child had an early bed time.

"Mama!" Sanada replied instead.

Sasuke knew, without his son's added kicks, that he wanted to be let down. He obliged him and watched him run off at his mother, full force. He frowned slight, as he slammed into his mother's legs, tucking his head against her round belly.

"Gentle, Sanada." He scolded.

His son looked up at his mother, his chin resting on her protruding tummy. "Sorry Mama."

She brushed his thick black hair lovingly. "It's alright."

Sanada lifted his arms to her, and Hinata was going to comply, leaning down to lift their son.

Not on Sasuke's watch.

He was there in less than a second, snatching the little boy before his mother could be taxed. Hinata just looked up and smiled at him, shaking her head lightly. She was used his to crazy by now. She easily allowed his hand to circle around her waist and let him guide her back through the untouched wild of their property.

As if she needed any of his help.

Sasuke wasn't alone anymore. He had a family again. A family that he love more than himself. More than anything.

But he must be reminded, that even more than that, he must keep the peace.


	3. Day 3

Prodigy.

Itachi had been one. He had grown up in his shadow, longing to compete with him and forever unable to catch up. Even when Sasuke had thought that he had bested him, killed him, he was still nowhere close to his brothers natural power.

Even Sasuke himself was called a prodigy. Though to have his talents dismissed on the notion that he was just somehow born with talent and didn't train until literal exhaustion every night of his life was off-putting.

Now, his son, wielder of not one, but two dojutsus, whose power was reminiscent of a deity, the same word rang again by onlookers.

Prodigy.

"I don't think I want to be a ninja."

The Uchiha household was fairly modest compared to what most people thought of when thinking of great clans. The home that held the infamous Sasuke Uchiha, and his Byakugan Princess, was an average sized house for their neighborhood. With a slightly larger than average sized family. It was full of laughter and warm home cooked meals.

But now, deathly still silence.

Sasuke appraised his oldest son with a passive, blank face. Sanada, a twelve year old boy who held his resemblance, but lacked his mannerisms. Sanada was quite, kind to almost everyone and a little on the shy side. He was incredibly intelligent, and hardworking.

He had learned Gentle Fist from his mother and had adapted it to suit 180° vision. He also had a fairly good grasp on his Sharingan and had been mastering long range attacks to compliment his taijutsu based fighting. He had a very strategic mind and used all his immense genetic superiority to feats beyond what they had thought a Genin could accomplish.

Hinata had been staring at Sasuke since Sanada had announced it. Waiting to see how her husband would react. But Sasuke kept his silence.

As did his daughter, Minato, which was the most surprising. Minato looked similar to Sasuke as well, but feminine, pretty and her black hair curled wildly. Sasuke has vague memories of Shisui's hair and only a mediocre knowledge of genetics but yet their his daughter sat, long black curly hair and all. Silently. Which was new ever since she could learn how to talk. Minato, apart from entering the Academy that year, had spent a lot of time with her aunt and had picked up on her much more chatty disposition. Even she could see that this was a serious conversation.

Sasuke's youngest child on the other hand, barley over one years old and silent as the grave. As long as Hinata was holding him. Fukuryu loved Hinata, and only Hinata, and if he didn't have his mother, he let his displeasure be known for the world to hear. He was Sasuke only child that looked nothing like him, but with his perpetual pout, he had a sneaky suspicion that the little brat held his disposition.

"Do you have anything else in mind? Some interests? Or hobbies?" Hinata asked.

She had clearly decided to move on in the conversation without Sasuke.

Sanada still hadn't looked up. His voice quiet and muffled and Sasuke didn't need Byakugan to see through the table to know that his son would be pressing his fingers together, restlessly. A nervous tick.

"I'd still like to help people, and, and I know, I know I have a lot of talent. I think I'd like to be something a little different. Something like a P-p-police Officer."

As Sanada struggled through the sentence, his blush only worsened. His son only stuttered under great stress, and Sasuke's heart clenched.

Why did his son feel so embarrassed or ashamed to share with them? Sasuke could remember his father, and the cold indifference, the disapproval, the attention he gained only after he could somehow prove himself.

Sasuke never wanted it to be like that with his children.

Yet, there Sanada was, unable to meet either of his parents eyes, blushing, stuttering, fidgeting. He had probably been keeping those feelings in for weeks, months, afraid of their reactions to his thoughts.

Another part of Sasuke's clenched painfully, imagining his son as a Police Officer. Too see Sanada in that uniform, to see that crest with the Uchiha again. It filled Sasuke's chest with sadness and pride.

"It sounds like you've put a lot of thought into this." Hinata spoke softly and sweetly.

Sanada nodded.

"Have you felt this way for awhile?"

He nodded again.

Failure. Sasuke felt like a failure as a father. His son's discomfort was a direct reflection of how he had parented Sanada thus far. All he could feel was shame. With himself.

"I didn't want to disappoint you." Sanada whispered, so quiet Sasuke almost didn't catch it.

Hinata's eyes grew big as they met with Sasuke's again.

"That would never disappoint me. Everyone grows up and chooses their own paths." Hinata smiled comfortingly. "Whatever path you choose is the one meant for you. If you want to become a Police Officer, than I think that's amazing Sanada."

Sasuke watched his son finally look up from his hiding spot under his shaggy black hair. His black eyes looked up to his mother with hopefulness. His cheeks and ears still dusted pink with shame and uncertainty.

"Yeah, and I'm gonna be the Hokage!" Minato shrieked. "Uncle Naruto said that I was named after his dad, who was the fourth Hokage, and he's the seventh Hokage, and Papa Kakashi was the sixth and that I'll be one for sure!"

Hinata blanched.

"We did not name you after that usuratonkachi's dad." Sasuke huffed.

Hinata frowned at Sasuke's nickname.

"And someday, Ryu will let go of mom!" Minato joked.

Sasuke huffed. It wasn't likely

His small son's fist tightened in Hinata's shirt, white eyes narrowed into slits as he lay his head in the the crook of his mother neck. The only person in the world with the audacity to glare at Sasuke Uchiha. His infant son.

"I told my Sensei, and he got upset. He said my team wouldn't be able to take the Chunin exams without me, so I promised to stay until then. He said I was wasting my talent." Sanada admitted.

Getting such a negative reaction from his teacher is what had probably kept Sanada from confiding in his family for so long. Which Sasuke considered worth giving his sensei a visit. He had a glare that could rival Ryu's and some choice words to go along with it.

Wasting his talents?

Itachi had talent. He was a genius. A prodigy. Yet his mind had been distorted and manipulated and spent the rest of his life exiled and shamed until he died.

Sasuke himself was described as all those things, and yet he had similarly been taken advantage of, only saved by the love of his friends.

Even his wife's cousin, whom she loved dearly, who had been showed with the praise of "prodigy" died from just protecting her.

Was it really the worst thing in the world for his son to not want to be a ninja?

"I think, that becoming a Police Officer, is a… fine plan." Sasuke finally muttered.

Sanada turned to Sasuke, looking up at him with the same hopeful glimmer in his eyes. "Thank you, father."

"Yeah big brother! You can protect the people inside Konoha while I lead the ninja and protect everyone from outside Konoha!" Minato yelled again, almost knocking over her soup to give her older brother a high five. "Because I'm definitely going to become Hokage! Datte-"

"If you finish that sentence, no dessert."

Minato looked over at her father, aghast. Slowly she lowered herself back down in her chair, pouting. "I hope when big brother becomes a Police Officer that he works hard to end these injustices.

Sasuke rolled his eyes and focused back on his dinner.


End file.
